One of the best Law of Attraction books you could read today was first published in 1913.

Let me tell you about it…

Recently we watched the PBS television remake of the classic children’s book, Pollyanna.

I absolutely loved the new movie.

The acting, scenery, editing and story were virtually perfect.

There have been other movies of Pollyanna, going way back to 1920 with famous silent film star Mary Pickford. And of course Disney did their version in 1960 with Hayley Mills.

But this recent version is fresh and timely.

And I loved being reminded of the message in it.

At the core of Pollyanna’s sunny personality is “the glad game.”

In short, it’s the ability to find something to be glad about in any situation.

“There is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.” ― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

As Porter’s books reveal, this is at first something you have to train yourself to do. Even Pollyanna wasn’t born knowing it. Her father taught it to her.

It reminds me of the art I bought a few months ago:

“Train your mind to see the good in every situation”

In short, you can train your mind to see the good.

It’s what recent neuroscience is telling us.

You are not your brain; you are the operator of it.

You can teach your mind how to look for the “glad” in life.

And once you “get it,” looking for the glad in any situation becomes a fun challenge.

But the payoff is happiness.

And isn’t that what you want?

On my forthcoming new album, I plan to record a song called “Look for the Light.” It’s a reminder that there is light in everything.

But after seeing this remake of Pollyanna, I also wrote a song called “The Glad Game.”

I’m dedicating my forthcoming sixth singer-songwriter album to Melissa Etheridge. It’ll have a “glad” song on it.

I’m using what I learned from my private lesson with rock icon Melissa Etheridge to write something memorable.

And all of this got me wondering where the glad game came from.

Did Eleanor Porter invent it?

“What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out! … The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes—his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest! … When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that…” – Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

It’s by Christian D. Larson, a popular New Thought author of such books as Your Forces and How to Use Them. He also penned the famous Optimist Creed, which I’ve reprinted in a book or two of my own.

Larson’s glad book came out in 1912.

Porter’s glad novel came out in 1913.

I can’t find any references to any “glad game” before 1913, when Pollyanna: The Glad Book was first published.

Certainly after the book became a bestseller, it triggered more books, a board game, a play, movies, and rumors have it there were glad game mastermind meetings.

Pollyanna became a huge bestseller in 1914, became a publishing phenomena, ignited a joyous, glad-hunting following around the world, and is still regarded as a classic of children’s literature today.

Maybe Larson’s little book gave Porter the idea for her novel. I can’t say. It’s not likely, though.

Porter was probably finishing her novel and sending it to the publisher in 1912, when Larson’s book arrived.

Eleanor Porter author of Pollyanna and many other books

So I think Porter deserves full credit for creating the idea of The Glad Game.

But I was also curious why the glad game isn’t talked about much these days.

Considering how much stress is reported in the world, and how much “fake news” is triggering unsettling emotions in people, learning to play the glad game would be welcome relief.

It could even be healing.

It could even help us return to a clarity of mind where we could better see our choices.

In fact, the glad game could be a wonderful way to change your inner vibration to one that is higher, brighter, and even wiser.

As you know, you get what you radiate.

Change the dial inside, using the glad game, and you can attract happier results.

So, why don’t more of us play the game?

My guess is that critical, skeptical, wounded, or cautious people think being a “Pollyanna” is not being a realist.

Over the decades, the term “Pollyanna” has come to be an insult; used to tell someone they are foolish, not in touch with reality, and possibly even dangerous to themselves.

But being a Pollyanna is making a choice on how to see the world.

You can still see the challenges, and still see the good in them, and still act to change them.

Letting situations or other people steal your happiness is being a victim.

Choosing to see the good/glad in situations or other people is being empowered.

You have a choice, of course.

For me, life is an optical illusion.

You see what you unconsciously expect and believe.

Like Pollyanna, you can consciously choose to look for and find the good/the glad/the light.

It’s your choice.

“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.” – Eleanor H. Porter

Remember, if you see the good but just sit there, you aren’t co-creating your reality.

You want to see the good, see the actions you need to take next, and do them.

After all, when Pollyanna was injured by a car, she didn’t give up. (She did briefly, but she pulled out of it.)

Instead, she got treatment and she got better.

Eleanor Porter, the author of Pollyanna: The Glad Book, explained it this way:

“Pollyanna did not pretend that everything was sugar-coated goodness, instead Pollyanna was positively determined to find the good in every situation.”

Note the difference?

Just looking at the world with blind eyes to objective reality is not what the author meant; it was looking at the world and finding the good in it.

Eleanor Porter once told an interviewer –

“People have thought that Pollyanna chirped that she was ‘glad’ at everything … I have never believed that we ought to deny discomfort and pain and evil; I have merely thought that it is far better to ‘greet the unknown with a cheer.'”

I believe the 1913 book was an unrecognized Law of Attraction resource.

Maybe it’s time for all of us to read it again, or at least go see the movie.

One Comment

Thank you Joe, I love this concept, I’m finishing up editing on my first self help book calling it The Light and in it I discuss the very same concept, that through all the suffering we go through, we should actually be grateful for every pain we go through, it is an opportunity to reach a higher place within us and for me and I’m sure many others it propels us to do more good and to reach higher. I look for the good in everything that happens to me because the contrast has been so extreme, I mean the last 2 years has been my greatest suffering, I wouldn’t change a thing because I not only Have a ton of new tools for my life and for my success I am closer to God I am closer to my own self, and I know that everything that comes my way I will make it through because the past proves I am able to. I am glad for it all. Going to pick up the book!

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